


Connie Swap Episode 21: Lost and Found

by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts



Series: Connie Swap [21]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Anxiety, Art, Deaf, Deaf Character, Drama, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Momswap, Pictures, Platonic Romance, Romance, Slice of Life, Steven Universe AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-04-27 15:59:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42, https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurdenKing/pseuds/BurdenKing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MjStudioArts/pseuds/MjStudioArts
Summary: Strange things have been happening: sensor towers knocked over, disruptions at gem ruins long quiet, and anomalous activity in the warp network. While Jasper and Peridot are away on their own hunt, Lapis is supposed to investigate something closer to home with Connie and Steven along to help. Surprises abound as the lost becomes found.





	1. Ocean Gem

Connie woke before her tactile alarm went off. She’d slept deeply but not particularly well. Her dreams had veered between the amazing and the terrible, but always they’d been intense.

And always about fusion.

To say she’d been distracted lately would be putting it mildly.

Connie sat up, stretched, and looked over to see Peridot busy in the kitchen. That the gem was cooking was a given but upon further examination it looked like she was also organizing the day’s lectures, fixing a broken appliance, and sifting through a half-dozen floating holograms about gem monster activity.

Not yet ready to face the high-octane supervision of a guilty-feeling Peridot, Connie surreptitiously grabbed her phone off her night stand and laid back down, rolling on her side away from the kitchen.

She didn’t have her hearing aids in yet so she couldn’t actually hear Peridot at work, but like a song stuck in her head, some corner of her mind provided what it thought that would sound like.

Connie rolled her eyes and unlocked her phone.

_‘10 missed texts’_

_* StUn - 06:55am | Good morning!! Lion says good morning 2. He also says I need to fill his food bowl_  
_* StUn - 07:07am | Do u have class today bcuz I was hoping we could have breakfast together ;)_  
_* StUn - 07:07am | if ur hungry 4 breakfast, I mean_  
_* StUn - 07:08am | it doesnt have to actually be over breakfast. I like breakfast anytime_  
_* StUn - 07:13am | if u need to do another Lapis day thats cool 2. I know shes blue_  
_* StUn - 07:15am | that wasnt meant as a joke but she is that 2. Give her hugs for me plz_  
_* StUn - 07:16am | call me when u r thsadbgisa1_  
_* StUn - 07:17am | sorry Lion jumped on phone. Maybe thsadbgisa1 is cat for ‘give Lapis hugs from me’_  
_* StUn - 07:17am | thsadbgisa1 but to all the gems_

She smiled at her phone, the silence of her ears making the texts read in Steven’s voice all the clearer. She typed back.

_* CoMa - 07:26am | Good morning and tell Lion thsadbgisa1 for me as well._  
_* CoMa - 07:26am | Peridot is up and going over assignments so school is definitely on for today._  
_* CoMa - 07:27am | Lapis isn’t out yet and yesterday was one of her manic days so I guess that means today’s going to be the opposite._  
_* CoMa - 07:28am | I would love to have breakfast with you. Very hungry. Had dreams about it. Is that weird? Don’t know when I’ll be free though._

It was true, too. July fifth may as well have been fired at her from the end of a fire hose: a hearty breakfast followed by a full health scan by Peridot (more evidence that the sanctuary hadn’t done some sort of magical healing for her), training with Jasper and Steven, a visibly depressed Lapis trying and failing to make eye contact with Peridot over lunch, lessons with Peridot, a patrol with Wolf and Jasper, and on and on and on until she’d collapsed into bed.

The whole time Connie wanted nothing more than to get half an hour alone with Steven but that had been impossible.

July sixth had started off the same but then Lapis had burst out of her room, swept Connie up in her arms, and then literally flown out the door, ignoring Peridot’s cries. Thrilling flights, joking over junk food, shenanigans with hydrokinesis, endless discussion about matters trivial (while anything serious was met with deflections or raspberries), all ending with the binge watching of an entire season of _Under the Knife_ over at her dad’s apartment.

Her dad had been quite surprised to come home and find them there that evening --having been at Dr. Kurunthottical’s all day-- though he’d joined them on the couch soon after. 

When Lapis had flown Connie home, she and Peridot had an argument the likes of which Connie hadn’t heard in years. It got so bad she had to take out her hearing aids. Eventually Jasper and Wolf warped back from patrol which prompted Lapis to retreat to her room in the temple while Peridot did the same… but only after giving Connie another, thorough health scan.

July seventh was the fifth all over again. When Steven had asked Lapis, who had been moping at her window seat staring at the ceiling, how she was doing, she’d replied, “You know the saying, ‘Life sucks and then you die?’ Well, gems don’t die.” Her friend had no good reply to that and had slunk away after wishing her well.

The eighth, yesterday, had featured another ‘kidnapping’ attempt by Lapis, only Peridot had tracked them down a few hours in. Literally. Wolf had followed Connie’s scent at Peridot’s request. What had followed was a game of capture the flag between guardians, with Connie as the flag. She’d effectively fled Beach City by joining Jasper on patrol, all to get out from between them.

After getting back she’d managed to get nearly an hour alone with Steven, the two of them giddy at the long-delayed opportunity, but less than five minutes after they’d unfused their remote stretch of beach had been invaded by Peridot calling Connie to dinner. A mixture of guilt, fear, and relief meant Connie and Steven had barely been able to string together a sentence between them around Peridot. Eventually Steven managed to stammer his way clear of the scene and headed back toward his house.

As soon as Peridot was distracted, Lapis saw to it that Connie finished her dinner in an air bubble maybe ten feet below the surface of the ocean, the pair sitting on a force field and witnessing a sunset from a spectacularly unique vantage point.

Back in the present, Connie was two taps into her next message when her phone vibrated.

_* StUn - 07:33am | GM again! Not weird. Same 4 me._  
_* StUn - 07:33am | let me know if free. Will meet u._  
_* StUn - 07:34am | O moms up early. Says hi. Says to plz remind you to remind Jasper no training on weekends. I think she forgets what day it is_  
_* CoMa - 07:35am | Will do. She knows the days of the week fine, it’s mainly the concept of spending a day not training or patrolling that confuses her._  
_* StUn - 07:36am | yeah XD looks like gardening today. C U L8R_  
_* CoMa - 07:36am | Bye_

With that Connie stared at her phone for another moment. She felt a pang of yearning, and a surge of annoyance at the moat of parental supervision that stood between her, her friend, and one of the most incredible experiences of her life. Then, steeling herself for the coming day, she rolled over, put her hearing aids in, and rose from bed.

“Ah, good morning, dear. Your crepes are ready, though be mindful of their temperature, and the quiche should finish soon. Today I thought we could cover a, ahem, deeper examination of geology followed by…”

 _Still,_ Connie reminded herself, _it’s better than things had been after New Years._

* * *

“...convection within the core is the… Connie?”

Connie sat in a student’s desk in the middle of the living room in front of a trio of blackboards, all covered with geology terms and diagrams. Her gaze had, on multiple occasions, wandered over to where Lapis lay across her window seat, a manga open and unread across the gem’s chest as she stared at the ceiling. The blue gem had shuffled out of her room half an hour ago looking bleary-eyed and as unkempt as someone whose clothes were an extension of their physical form could. The hydrokinetic’s funk was like a gravitational pull that kept drawing Connie’s eyes.

_Definitely not one of Lapis’ manic days._

“Sorry ma’am.” She hadn’t been paying attention, not really, but she’d listened _just enough_ to be able to recall the last couple seconds of Peridot’s lecture. “Convection, ma’am,” she prompted.

Peridot nodded. “Yes, the heat-induced movement of liquid within the core is a primary component to the Earth’s magnetic-”

This time it was an alerting hologram which interrupted the lecture. Then came a second. Then a third.

“Stars! A sensor tower disruption and mid-grade tidal alert?” observed the technician. “At least the warp log entry is-”

The temple door opened and Jasper emerged, speaking to Peridot while en route to the warp pad. “Another one. Let’s go.”

Connie’s tutor glanced between Quartz warrior and Quartz student. “I- But-” She exhaled. “Very well. Best to investigate while the disturbance is recent. Lapis, if this tidal alert escalates I may need you to engage in reconnaissance.”

Her gaze remaining on the ceiling, Lapis raised a thumbs up so dejected it looked like a visual contradiction.

“And Connie, Jasper and I may be away for a few-”

Connie waved back over her shoulder, phone out and texting as the screen door closed behind her.

* * *

“But where do they even go?” asked Steven, curiosity not dimming his thousand-watt smile in the slightest. “Like, are they in some sort of pattern buffer like a Star Trek transporter while we’re, uh, _together_ or are your ears actually somewhere inside, like, us?”

When they fused, Connie’s hearing aids vanished, only to return when they split. It was the current topic of conversation as the pair walked up the Beach House stairs, each beaming at each other from the experience.

“I mean, Peridot’s limb enhancers do something similar so it’s not unprecedented. Still, it’s easier to imagine it for the gems since they’re made out of hard light instead of,” Connie poked her shoulder, “stuff.”

Her friend nodded. “Extra-dimensional storage would be a pretty nifty power to- HI MISS LAPIS!” greeted Steven, his voice rising an octave and delivered at a near shriek.

The gem herself was sitting at a bar stool eating… quite a bit, given the stack of empty plates and the open Big Donut box. A box which, for some reason, was resting on a pair of life preservers. She swallowed and smiled. “Hey Stevie. Con-con. What are you two talking about?”

“GAMES // SUPERHEROES” they all but shouted over one another.

Sharing a look they said in unison, “SUPERHERO GAMES!” Steven hastily withdrew his copy of _Sentinels of the Multiverse_ from his backpack, as if the prop would make their delivery any less panicked.

“Neat,” said Lapis with a smirk, eyes smiling even as there were lines of sadness etched into her face. “Well, you two can be cute dorks some more since you’re going on a mission.” She transferred the donut box into her lap and tossed the life preservers at their feet. Biting into a donut, she added, “Oh, buf you’ll nee to puf dose on.”

Connie gave Lapis a searching look, even as Steven doffed his backpack and began fiddling with his life jacket. “Is this about that tidal thing Peridot mentioned?” she asked a moment later, her unstated question being, _And she’s okay with… whatever this is?_

Lapis swallowed and gave Connie a donut-eating grin. “Peri warped back about that alert more than an hour ago. Said I might find it ‘diverting to take Connie and the Steven on a voyage in the gem sloop,’” she said with crumb-covered finger quotes.

“More than an hour?! // There’s a gem sloop?!” exclaimed Connie and Steven, respectively.

Lapis addressed Steven, the teen still trying to get all of his hair through the life jacket’s opening. “Sure thing, Curls. We just don’t use it much: anything happens on the ocean and I just nope it, so why bother with a boat?” boasted Lapis.

“So why _are_ we bothering with a boat?” asked Connie. “And why the delay?”

Lapis made a dismissive gesture. “Peri’s alert said the Moissanite was swimming towards us. It’s harmless and it never causes problems anyway. As for the boat, well, this whole mission is a milk run that’s only happening because Dot’s in a snit about her sensors being tripped. So I figured,” and Lapis gave Connie a grin, “you two could have your first official mission where it’s just the two of you.” Her expression fell and the sadness lines became more pronounced. “It can’t have been much fun cooped up here with the three fussketeers.”

A part of Connie thrilled at the prospect, days of constantly wishing to be away from the gems making her eager no matter the circumstances. But another part of her looked at Lapis and saw a gem who maaaybe wasn’t in the best state of mind for operational command.

“Steven and I don’t know how to sail the sloop.”

“It’s idiot-proof. Dot programmed it with the destination. You just let it take you out and then let it take you back.”

“What are we supposed to do if we encounter the Moissanite?”

“Wave at it? It won’t do anything and there’s nothing to do, Con-con.”

“What should we do if we _do_ run into trouble?”

Steven was absently fiddling with the clasps of his life jacket while his head went back and forth between Connie and Lapis as though he was watching a heated tennis match.

“I’ll be chilling here keeping an eye out. If you guys send up a flare --the sloop's stocked with dozens of ‘em-- then I can be there in about fifteen seconds. You’re hardly going to leave Rehoboth Bay, which for me is like going from one couch cushion to the next. ‘Sides, if you two stuck around you’d just see me feeling lower than a snake’s butt, and no one wants that.”

Connie gave Lapis another long look, her hand somehow finding Steven’s in the process. “You’re sure this is okay?”

“Yeah, girlie, I’m sure. I’ve already got the sloop tied up down at the dock for you two.”

Connie bit her lip. “And you’re sure you’ll be okay?”

Lapis shook her head. “No. Things suck a whole lot for me right now, but I’m not going to leave you in the lurch. Not again. I’ll feel happier knowing you two are having some fun. Talk about superhero games some more or something.” She gave the pair a crooked smile.

“Well… okay,” conceded Connie.

Steven, meanwhile, let go of her hand and crossed the living room quickly, pulling Lapis into a hug. Lapis looked surprised for a moment then used one hand to hug him back. The other, after all, was holding a glazed cruller.

“I’m sorry things are all icky right now,” he said.

“Ah, thanks Pinkie.”

He started toward the door when he paused then returned and gave Lapis one more hug. “Oh yeah, and this is from Lion.”

* * *

The gem sloop was a little cutter with one mainsail and two headsails, each patterned after a gemstone that put Connie in the mind of a warp pad, but yellow. It had a long purple hull that wasn’t particularly deep, as well as a panel of controls and sensors that were immediately recognizable as Peridot’s cobbled-together tech.

Connie was pretty sure the depth finder was actually an Etch A Sketch that was somehow continually erasing and redrawing itself.

The sails, the rudder, even the anchor were all self-operating, tiny mechanisms making constant, minute adjustments as wind and and current dictated. Connie glanced up, shading her eyes from the sun, and saw Lapis flying in lazy circles overhead. The gem gave a final wave then winged over toward the top of the water tower, presumably to keep an eye out for flares.

There were workers attempting to hang up some sort of advertisement across the face of the water tower. Connie hoped a bummed Lapis wouldn’t make their jobs any more difficult.

Steven toggled an antiquated sonar screen, fiddled with a barometer that occasionally vented steam, and crouched eye-level with a row of Nixie tubes that counted down the number of nautical miles between them and their destination. “Wow, miss Peridot makes the coolest looking stuff.”

Connie walked over to him, something in the boat automatically stabilizing it so it hardly rocked side to side with the shift in mass. “Yeah, though that phone she built used to sometimes wake me up at night because, according to Peridot, the camshaft needed lubricating. I don’t think phones and whatever a camshaft is usually go together!” She paused and fiddled with a hearing aid. “Though it doesn't wake me up anymore.”

He nodded and the two busied themselves with minor things for the first leg of the voyage.

Once Beach City and its water tower were indistinct on the horizon, Steven (ducking under the horizontal rod, or boom, that supported the mainsail) gave Connie a meaningful look. Under the look waited an eager smile. “Shall we?”

Connie couldn’t help but return the expression. She extended a hand, which he took in his own. Setting his phone down next to the control panel, a chipper mix of electronic notes, acoustic guitar, and drum beats played.

Fifteen seconds later Connie was sitting and rubbing her head while Steven fretted about her. “I guess that’s why they call it the boom,” she offered, her scalp still smarting.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this in a boat. Or maybe if we had a bigger boat or if we had a smaller dance, then we could-” Steven was silenced by Connie reaching up and wiggling his nose with her finger.

What she didn’t say was that she’d sooner summon a dance floor over the ocean out of force fields than give up this opportunity.

Whatever Steven’s misgivings, he seemed to lose track of them when he met Connie’s eyes.

She stood up, mindful of the sail this time, and offered her hand to Steven once more. They danced.

* * *

A memory flitted across their mind. It was of the same time and place but as experienced by two different people. In it Steven and Connie were sitting back-to-back on the deck of Yellow Tail’s ship. It was the day they’d first met, a day that had been eventful even ignoring the monster attack that would come later. They were sitting back-to-back, reclining into one another and enjoying the steady breeze coming off the bay.

It had been a moment of profound calm and relaxation for both of them. A moment that each got to remember as they remembered it. A moment that each got to remember as their friend remembered it.

Calm and relaxation, squared.

They lay on the floor of the gem sloop, enjoying the sublime pleasure of _being_. Connie thought it was like being on the edge of the perfect nap, as comfortable as it was possible to be. Steven thought it was like snuggling close to someone, spooning in a magical bed where no one had that arm they couldn’t find a good spot for. Without words, without so much as a twitch of a muscle, both of them agreed the other had the right of it.

They, whoever they were when they were like this, laid on the floor of the gem sloop, content. This was a good experience. They were a good experience.

They were-

The figure’s chest rose and fell, their face growing slack save for a lingering smile, the boat literally rocking them to sleep.

* * *

There was a noise. It was gentle but loud at the same time, like the sigh of a giant.

Connie was laying on frizzy pillow which had a floral scent to it that she’d grown quite fond of over since first encountering it in November. Her front was warm, very warm, as she snuggled a body pillow or bundle of covers. Her right side and back were enjoying just the right amount of cool to keep her comfortable, a gentle breeze flitting across the exposed skin of her forearm.

However, her left side, the side beneath her, was protesting just loudly enough to, in combination with the noise, draw her out of her perfect nap. That shoulder was laying on something hard and starting to complain. She’d fallen asleep with her hearing aids in and that was making the left side of her head uncomfortable. And she had this arm she just couldn’t find a good spot for. Which was weird, because that hadn’t been a problem earlier.

Connie groped around, trying to find that magical place to put her arm when the body pillow giggled. That made her eyes flutter open slightly; she licked her lips and was surprised to find she was chewing her hair.

She woke up a little further and realized it wasn’t her hair she was chewing, that the floral-scented pillow was in fact Steven’s thick curls, and that the giggling body pillow was Steven’s body.

She was spooning Steven.

She. Was spooning. Steven.

Connie snapped the rest of the way awake and said something which would have been garbled even if her tongue hadn’t been mired in Steven’s mane. She bolted upright, unsure what to say or what to think or where to put herself. All of this caused Steven to blink and roll onto his back, her friend looking up at Connie, his face shaded by an overhead cloud or something.

For a second he smiled up at her with a kind of bleary tranquility. Then he blinked and blinked again, going so far as to rub his eyes. Then he looked up, not at Connie but past her, his eyes went wide, and he gave a startled yelp.

“Wuh- AAAH!” said Connie, her confused noise becoming a cry of alarm as she followed Steven’s gaze skyward to find that the ‘cloud’ overhead was actually a giant rocky outcropping that was… crooning?

There was more flailing and general cries of alarm, the sloop’s automatic stabilization efforts pushed to their limits. Then Steven spotted, grabbed, and fired off the flare, a brilliant green dot that arced into the sky and hung there, an incongruous viridescent mote in a vast expanse of blue.

After the world failed to continue being frightening and bewildering, Connie gathered herself enough to get a better look around. They were at the shore of a mountainous island teeming with greenery where a moss- and grass-covered cliff with the _weirdest_ overhang provided the shade.

The Nixie tube display showed all zeroes.

“Whoa,” said Steven.

“Whoa,” answered Connie.

Had Connie the presence of mind to count, she’d have noticed it took Lapis nearly twenty-five seconds to arrive. As it was, she was still sifting through the myriad weirdness that had been heaped on her since waking. She didn’t notice Lapis until the blue gem set down lightly in the now more-crowded boat.

“Hey kiddies. I see you found the living island.”

“The living-” Connie swiveled around and got another look at that ‘overhang.’ _Yup, definitely a beak, or maybe a maw like you saw in some depictions of dragons._

Somewhere inside Connie HQ a fuse exploded and whoever was at the helm threw their hands up in surrender. Connie fell and landed on her duff, still looking up and gaping at the gem monster that was literally overshadowing them. Her brain tried to get a feel for the scale before once more simply giving up.

Steven helped her to her feet. 

“What? Did the old girl sneak up on you? Considering she’s the size of a national park, you’d have to be _pretty_ distracted not to notice.” Lapis’ eyes twinkled despite the air of sadness that surrounded her.

Steven rubbed the back of his neck. “We, um, fell asleep, actually. I woke up and freaked out, which is why I shot the flare.”

Lapis searched Steven’s face, the merest hint of pout appearing when she seemed convinced by what she saw.

“How can one gem be so large?” asked Connie, her brain finally returning to a semblance of order.

Lapis sat down on the edge of the sloop, the vessel shifting slightly while it bumped gently against what Connie had thought was a rocky shore but was actually a... shoulder? 

The gem was looking thoughtful. “Moissanites are big even before they get corrupted, and she could actually be more than one fused. There’s so much stuff growing it’d be near impossible to tell.”

Steven sat down opposite Lapis (prompting more rocking), rubbed some sleep from his eye, and said, “So why isn’t she going all Godzilla like the other corrupted gem people we meet?”

Lapis shrugged. “Don’t know. Most of them do. This one just paddles around the oceans, confusing the occasional cartographer and tripping a half dozen of Peridot’s sensors every time she gets anywhere close to the shoreline.”

“Well, there were the beetles,” said Connie. “And the gems at the sanctuary are left alone.”

“Yeah,” agreed Lapis. “‘Course the other problem is that there isn’t really a way for us to poof the living island. Not without mounting an injector on her or something, and that’d be both cruel and a shattering risk if we overlooked a gemstone.”

Connie and Steven shared a look, each recognizing the other’s question. Steven then turned back to Lapis and said, “Yeah, but what about, ya know-” and he made a big fist which he brought down into his open palm with a mouthed explosion noise.

Lapis rolled her eyes. “Gee, I wonder why I never thought of that before.” 

A second later a water fist, large, though small in comparison to the island, reared up and attempted to sock the colossal gem beast in the back of its head. The moment the fist got within a dozen yards of the target, it lost all cohesion and fell as great sheet of water, churning the surf and dousing part of the slope of the beast’s neck.

“I could go bigger but all that would do is get us soaked,” drawled Lapis. “Thing is, Moissanites are like living construction trucks for building things underwater. Under any fluid, actually. They can make the liquid around them calm and easy to move through, which is great if you’re building stuff twenty thousand leagues under the sea and awful if you’re trying to punch things with water. Those Homeworld dum-dums took _forever_ figuring out they could protect important locations from me by keeping a few of these gals around.”

Lapis drew in on herself, arms wrapped around her as if suddenly cold. “Of course, by then we had ways of dealing with them too.”

Connie was about to ask something when her stomach beat her to the punch, growling a different question, namely, _Did anyone think to pack a meal?_

“Ah, good idea, Con-con. Let’s have a mid-mission picnic. I’ll be back as fast as Gauge-Rage and Stocky Shortcake can stuff the calories into a box.”

Lapis leapt off the boat and was soon a blur receding toward the horizon.

Connie and Steven shared another look, Steven saying, “I guess we should, um, drop anchor or something?”

There was a whirring noise, a splash, and then the _chunkachunkachunka_ sound of chain being payed out from somewhere within the hull.

After the sloop self-anchored itself, Connie gathered her things and summoned a force field to serve as a temporary plank for them to walk across to the ‘island.’

Steven joined her a moment later.

“Hey Steven?”

“Mmm?” answered the boy, looking around at his surroundings with keen interest.

“Didn’t Neimaat ask you if you’d ever ridden a monster before?”

“Yeah she did.”

Connie scratched some turf aside with her foot, revealing the stony hide beneath. “I think this counts.”

* * *

Even though it wasn’t a manic day for Lapis, it was clear the gem was putting her all into being personable around Connie and Steven. Whether that was for the teens’ benefit or so Lapis herself could pretend was beyond Connie’s ability to discern.

They hiked the mountain. Lapis flew them up to the ‘overhang’ so they could eat donuts on a dragon’s head. She made a point of bringing sodas, all of which sprayed the entirety of their carbon dioxide in the opener’s face, the gem monster’s aura affecting the soda and rendering it instantly flat. 

Several times they heard the soft-yet-loud crooning from before. Other than the gentle wake following the rear of the island, it was the only indication the island was anything animate.

“Back when we first encountered the Moissanite, I spent a couple of days trying to take the big girl down. I take it kinda personally when someone makes my water misbehave; hydrokinesis is my schtick thankyouverymuch. But after awhile I realized she was just having a good time paddling around. I don’t usually have time to get to know them gem I’m trying to squish, but this time I’m glad I did. Leave well enough alone, I say. Plus,” and Lapis chuckled, “it meant I got to see Jasper try and take her down herself when I gave up. It was like watching one of the geode beetles trying to poof a Quartz.”

“Mom didn’t mind?” asked Connie, her expression growing thoughtful as they sat atop the island’s moss-carpeted head.

“Naw. Your mom was a real tough cookie during the war, she had to be, but she mellowed after it was all over. She was always a ‘do what needs to be done’ sort and after the war-” Lapis thumped the ‘ground’ with her foot, “-this didn’t need doing.”

Before too much longer Lapis had flown the pair back down to the boat. “I ought to get back. Wolf and I were having an epic contest of lazing earlier and I’d hate for him to get too far ahead of me. Ol’ Yeller needs to learn that I can out-nap him in my sleep.”

Connie and Steven chuckled, but it was clear to both of them that Lapis was at her limit. They were gracious in not letting on that she was retreating to sulk, waving as she departed with a final, “Send up another flare if you need me.”

Their mission, such as it was, completed, the two asked the anchor to hoist itself (it did) and then fiddled with the controls until it took them on a course for Beach City. Both remembered to duck under the boom this time as the boat shifted relative to the direction of the wind.

* * *

“Hey Connie?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s this blinking light mean?”

Connie had been watching the living island recede slowly from sight, something about Lapis’ words keeping her thoughtful, but she walked over and examined the control panel alongside Steven. Sure enough, one of the cobbled-together displays had a blinking light calling for their attention.

Connie shrugged and the two took turns poking buttons and turning dials until-

The Etch A Sketch depth finder erased itself and then an image emerged that looked to be a topographic representation of the sea floor.

There was wreckage. Lots of it. And it looked vaguely familiar. But where had Connie-

“Is that that big sky eyeball thing?” asked Steven.

“The big- The Red Eye?!” Connie exclaimed. 

“Yeah. Me, mom, and dad were celebrating unpacking the last box with a meal at Fish Stew Pizza when that crazy thing showed up in the sky. Then it got pulled into the ocean and went kablooie!”

Sure enough, the giant automated probe had arrived in mid-October, even before Connie had met Steven. Lapis had used a giant water fist to snatch it out of the sky and drag it under water where it promptly exploded.

“Huh. I guess this is where it went down. Well, that’s interesting, I suppose but it’s not like-” Connie’s mouth snapped shut with an audible clack. 

Rendered in the Etch A Sketch-equivalent of real-time was an octopus hauling mightily on a net that engulfed a piece of the wreckage. As if _that_ wasn’t strange enough, the octopus transformed into what you’d get if you had a mermaid with the upper half of a particularly muscle-bound gorilla.

It hauled mightily on the net, getting the contents unstuck from whatever it had gotten caught on. Then the merilla began swimming away with its prize in tow.

Connie frantically adjusted dials and tapped at the screen, so much so that she briefly shook and thus erased the image. “Aargh!” she cried in frustration.

However a moment later the image reappeared, zoomed in. The improbable creature rolled onto its back straining like a weightlifter doing a particularly creative tricep workout. A second and then a third tail appeared to help it gain thrust. In clear monochrome, Connie could see the gemstone set into the things chest, the cut and location identical to the one she remembered.

“AMETHYST!”

“Really?!”

Connie was breathing heavily, her pulse pounding. She’d finally stumbled across Amethyst!

There had been things she’d wanted longer (to summon her sword) or more immediately (time alone with Steven), things that kept her up at night more (the implications of her mom being the Rebellion general who condoned shattering) or troubled her sleep (the loss of her history book that had been so dear to her). But Amethyst, how she’d left angry at the Crystal Gems, how she’d felt betrayed by Connie _personally_... in aggregate, Amethyst was one of the biggest weights on Connie’s conscience.

Connie felt a sudden, _palpable_ need to find Amethyst and try to, somehow, explain and make things better.

Steven picked up on this, because of course he did. “Should I shoot a flare for miss Lapis? I’m sure she could help us follow Amethyst since she’s, ya know, in the water. Maybe Amethyst would appreciate it having Lapis do her water magic to carry the heavy thingy in her net.”

Connie shook her head immediately and vigorously, faster even then she could conceptualize her own objection. Eventually she caught up with herself, saying what a part of her had known in an instant. “No. Lapis, Jasper, and Peridot had fought the Quartz Pack before and they were the ones who poofed them during the fight. I don’t know if she’ll be willing to listen to me, but I know she’d be unwilling to listen to them. Also,” Connie swallowed and hesitated, “well, I’m not sure. It was a hard situation with no right answer, but a part of me has never been able to agree with how they did things back in Manikota.”

She looked Steven in the eyes, her expression open, seeking. “I worry she’d make the wrong call again.”

Unspoken was Connie’s question to Steven: _Do you think I’ll do the same?_

A minute passed and Steven blew out a breath. He shook his head and offered her a modest smile. He supported her. Connie’s stomach was still a swirling vortex of dread and worry, but that helped warm the ice in her veins.

With another glance, Steven began poking buttons, his tongue sticking out in concentration. Slowly, clumsily, the two managed to keep the ever-shifting form of Amethyst and her mysterious cargo _etched_ in their sights.

* * *

It turned out Amethyst hadn’t been going too far from Beach City to begin with. Judging from the Nixie tube display, they were only a few nautical miles away from the temple. The stretch of beach Amethyst was approaching was nondescript, undeveloped, with a forest growing almost to the high tide line.

Connie’s nerves were a jittering mess and she felt sure of nothing except that the twin facts that A) she wasn’t ready for this, and B) she might never get another chance. She considered traveling ahead and disembarking so they could meet Amethyst on land and she considered waiting until she emerged before leaving the boat, trying to imagine the approach that would broadcast Connie’s good intentions clearest. She hemmed and hawed until Steven sat her down and gave her his phone, telling her to play some BoxIt while she, ‘let her brain drink some mind-lemonade.’

After a few levels she decided she’d rather get ahead of Amethyst and wait for her on land. She was still so uncertain, though, that it took her three tries to successfully summon a force field for them to disembark with.

With a sudden, final worry, she grabbed a flare gun and handed it to Steven, just in case they ended up needing backup. Steven strapped on his shield for good measure, though he dialed the force field Connie summoned into it down as far as it would go.

They crouched in some bushes near where it looked like Amethyst would emerge, Connie’s heart pounding.

The upper half of the merilla broke the surface of the water and now there could be absolutely no doubt: the purple, shapeshifted gem was Amethyst. Recreating herself into something that was like an elephant-legged centaur (also built like a bodybuilder), the Quartz hauled mightily on a net made from woven power conduits. These were the heavy duty ones Peridot had rarely used because, ‘they had little utility for power consumption on a scale such as ours.’

Apparently they made good, high-strength netting if you were creative enough to weave them into it.

Connie heard Steven muffle himself several times, gasps of surprise and squees of excitement attempting to escape. It was one thing to hear about this sort of thing second-hand and quite another to see it for yourself, something Connie had learned early in her own missions with the gems.

Slowly Amethyst the elephentaur dragged something out of the water. Its surface was an iridescent red and it was shaped like a cylinder that widened out until the final third, at which point it tapered back to normal width. It was maybe the size of a large hot water heater or a small refrigerator, though clearly capital ‘H’ _Heavy_.

After getting it most of the way out of the water, Amethyst morphed into herself, but with tentacles for arms. One stretched out and ensnared a solid looking tree while the other wrapped tightly around the salvage. She heaved, flexing first one arm, then another, then her entire body twisted into a spiral like someone wringing out a damp cloth. Sure enough the water caught in her white mane and rough-spun clothing poured out, but the extreme bout of shapeshifting also served to drag the heavy object entirely onto shore.

There was another sharp intake of breath, but honestly Connie couldn’t be sure if that had been her or Steven or both. Whatever Amethyst was doing, she was doing the heck out of it.

The purple gem reverted to her original form, spat out a prodigious glob of sea water, then barked out, “Woo! Génial! Check me out, world, because I’m the treasure finding master!” She hopped up on the… thing… and did a victory jig that reminded Connie of the few times she’d seen Wolf get _really_ excited.

She even howled.

 _Well, if it’s ever going to happen, it should be now,_ Connie mentally prodded herself. Steven had agreed he would stay in the bushes to start with, in case two people (one of them unfamiliar), made Amethyst nervous. Even so, she shared a glance with her friend, steeled herself and then-

“Wonderfully done, Amethyst,” said a lyrical voice. A tall, elegant gem dressed in shades of white and grey stepped out of the forest, her hands clasped in front of her. She stopped a dozen paces away and bowed.

Amethyst waved her off, grinning. “Ah, none of that, Pearl. Just tell me je suis the best.”

_Pearl?_

Pearl rose and said in a didactic tone, “‘Just tell me _I am_ the best.’”

_Is that- The gem isn’t cracked but it looks-_

Then Pearl smiled and added, “Which you are. Now, with your permission, Amethyst, I would very much like to inspect the salvaged drive.”

Connie rocked on her heels as a memory thundered into her.

> _Garnet's smile grew wider and she winked her blue eye. "Oh, and the other two have already come and gone," she said._
> 
> _Connie blinked. "I don't know what that means."_
> 
> _"You will."_

Amethyst turned then her jaw dropped. “Yo. Yo Pearl. Pearl. PearlpearlpearlPEARL!”

The white gem turned, her hands once more clasping respectfully in front of her until she saw what Amethyst was pointing at. Her eyes went wide and her hands fell to her side.

Connie, without realizing it, had stood and stepped through the bushes. A thousand hours spent learning and reading that amazing story and wondering about who the cracked stone might have been were flashing behind her eyes.

“P-Pearl?”

…

…

…

“Connie?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art for this chapter came from BurdenKing. The chapter promo was drawn by MjStudioArts.
> 
> The reunion that has been in the works all the way since Episode 1; it's about dang time, right? Or rather, it will be next Wednesday, May 2nd, when the next chapter of _Lost and Found_ goes up.
> 
> The inspiration for the living island's design comes from [Filibusterfrog](http://filibusterfrog.tumblr.com/post/172734797768/amarashadow-aiyumedayori-filibusterfrog), who was gracious enough to give MJ permission for its use. You can check out their Tumblr page [here](http://filibusterfrog.tumblr.com/).
> 
> In case you're curious what Connie looks like with her hearing aids, MJ was kind enough to draw it up.  
> 
> 
> There's lots of new omake content to announce. The break between Ep20 and today has been a very productive one, and I thank our omake contributors for it.  
> *) [Escape from Homeworld](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/33132777) by [br42](http://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42), [BurdenKing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BurdenKing/pseuds/BurdenKing), [MJStudioArts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MjStudioArts/pseuds/MjStudioArts) \- Novaculite, a warp pad technician and veteran from Earth, needs to find a way to the one planet she knows Homeworld won’t follow her." Note: Contains original art from MJStudioArts. **This fic is 100% canon.**  
>  *) [Deleted Scenes - Episode 20: Together Breakfast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/32948448) by [br42](http://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- Three alternate takes on the scene at the barn.  
> *) [Me, Myself, and I](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/33133164) by TexasAndroid - A look at what might have happened with Steven and Connie between _Together Breakfast_ Chapters 3 and 4.  
>  *) [Peridot's Secret](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/33133017) by [MK_Foodshops](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Foodshops/pseuds/MK_Foodshops) \- Peridot has been secretly attempting to gain magical powers, despite being an Era-2 gem. She believes that this time it will be successful for sure. However, everything goes awry when a certain somebody shows up unexpectedly. What will happen now that her secret is out?  
> *) [The ConnieSwap Vignettes - A collection of very short stories](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/33160776) by [MK_Foodshops](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Foodshops/pseuds/MK_Foodshops) \- A series of very short stories that takes place within the universe of ConnieSwap. Every short story could represent either a plot or not much of a plot at all. All in all, every story ranges all the way from slice of life like Lapis philosophizing about the universe while eating a coconut flavored donut to the final moments of a gem warrior more than 5000 years ago during the Gem War. This collection will be constantly updating.  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


	2. The Hero and the Companion

“P-Pearl?”

...

...

...

“Connie?” Pearl called out in a stifled voice.

The four corners of Connie's mind flew apart, her thoughts a cacophony.  
_Does she hate me for not letting her out?_  
_I can't believe she's really real!_  
_The gems said embedded gems were all corrupted! Were they lying? Did they not know?_  
_Does she still care about me? Did she ever care about me?_  
_Do I know that she's really the same Pearl?_  
_Oh my gosh I said so many things to that book! She must think I'm pathetic!_  
_I'm sorry! I didn't know you were in there! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm-_  
_I summoned my sword because of her story! Could she teach me to summon it again?!_  
_Please be her._  
_I missed her so much. Please be her!_  
_I'M SO SORRY! PLEASE BE HER!_

Connie licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry, and said in a wavering voice that grew more confident as she spoke, “And so it was, late into the night, that the companion did try to divert the hero to happier times.”

Pearl's hands rose from where they'd fallen and were clutched to her chest as she responded. "Battles won. Innocents saved. Machinations thwarted. The companion labored under their geas and so could not speak freely, but even so inhibited they did their best to impart what comforts they could."

She spoke the words easily and with the intonation of a master storyteller. Her voice was higher and more lyrical than Connie had imagined --A decade of bedtime stories had cemented Peridot's as the default voice Connie imagined for narration-- but the cadence and style were _exactly_ how Connie had heard it in her head.

Connie's chest was tight as her shoulders rose, her eyes wide in recognition, her hair momentarily poofing up before...

The hero dashed forward and collided with the companion, pulling the elegant gem into a tight, tight hug as though to confirm she was real, or perhaps to keep her from leaving ever again. Tears were streaming down her face and wordless sobs wracked her despite, for a moment at least, the world being made _right_.

The companion staggered back a step, surprise on her face. It took a moment for the world to catch up with her as she looked down and saw the hero burying her face in her chest. Slowly, as though trying to catch a soap bubble without popping it, a pale hand rose and caressed dark hair. She knew that voice, could mistake it for no other. And though she was crying too hard to see, she could feel the hero as she wrapped dainty arms around her, and that was more than enough.

Whatever had happened before, whatever might happen after, here, in this moment, the hero and the companion were reunited and all was at it should be.

There were sounds but the world was a distant thing to Connie just then. It wasn't until the noises grew hostile, panicked even, that she allowed herself to hear, "-away, Citrine! I mean it! I won't let you put la famille in another bubble." Blinking through tears, Connie could make out a flicker of purple as something long and thin, a whip, was withdrawn from the gemstone at Amethyst's chest.

"Amethyst, no!" cried Pearl. There was a flash of white light and a translucent Pearl without irises appeared between them and the Quartz.

"Access denied," it said in a high-pitched monotone, a single arm raised in a stopping gesture.

There was a scratchy roar of frustration on the other side of the Pearl-shaped figure. Then a second appeared beside it --"Access denied."-- and a third, a fourth, another and another until they were beyond easy counting.

"Access d- // Access- // Acc- // -ied // Access den- // -ess denied // -s de- // -deni- // -cess denie- // -denied."

Quickly, but so gently Connie hardly felt it, Pearl unlaced Connie's arms and stepped free of the embrace. She stepped daintily forward, hands clutched and lowered, and then she bowed deeply while banishing the Pearl holograms or whatever they were.

"Amethyst, I acted without your leave and I apologize, but I ca-" The word lodged in her mouth as though she were choking on it. "I can n-" The bow deepened. "Please forgive this servant's impertinence but Connie should not be harmed."

The one eye of Amethyst's that wasn't hidden behind her hair looked at Pearl, then glared at Connie, then focused on Pearl again with a confused cant to it. Slowly the whip hand lowered. "Pearl, she's one of _them_. She's a liar. She'll steal you."

Connie's emotions were a swirling mess and she had long since stopped having even a semblance of a plan. Pearl was bowing and her dad had bowed to Jasper on occasion, so maybe that was an accepted Quartz gesture. Whatever the case, Connie bent at the waist and said, "Amethyst, I followed you here so I could apologize. I felt terrible for how it went in Manikota, how it left you a-alone and angry. You have every reason to hate Lapis, Jasper, Peridot, and me. You don't have to forgive me, but I promise you that I didn't like it then and I won't steal anyone from you now."

She was looking at the sand between her and Amethyst when the gem said in a skeptical tone, "Are you gonna to let my packmates out of their bubbles?"

Connie opened her mouth to speak but then no words volunteered themselves. Or rather, she couldn't bring herself just then to tell the Quartz her true answer: no. What the Crystal Gems had done to Amethyst was wrong but that didn't extend to what they'd done to the Quartz Pack.

Fortunately, she was spared answering.

"We spoke of this, Amethyst," said Pearl gently, still bent low though her voice lacked the urgent deference from earlier. "Your fellow Quartzes were corrupted. The Crystal Gem's motives were fair even as their methods were coarse."

"Oh, so Citrine shows up and you're leaving me for them. Is _that_ it?" There was plenty of anger in her voice but Amethyst also sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

Somehow Pearl's bow deepened. "I am faithful, Amethyst, and Connie's arrival will not change that. This servant still serves despite thinking that you and Connie don't have to be opponents."

After a moment of quiet Connie couldn't help herself and raised her head to study Amethyst's reaction.

That one eye was moving from girl to Pearl and back before rolling, Amethyst saying in an exasperated tone, "Ugh, quit it with that stuff. Both of you. Stand up, you weirdos."

Pearl favored Amethyst with a smile though her stance remained respectful, even servile. Connie felt a knot in her chest loosen by slow degrees, the storm within her quieting slightly.

Amethyst advanced a step toward Connie, her expression serious once more. "I will clobber you if you try anything, Citrine. Connie. Whatever your stupid name is. I'm not happy with you and I'm sure not scared of you, but I don't want to make my girl Pearl sad by throwing you so hard you hit the water and skip."

Connie raised her hands in non-challenging gesture. She couldn't keep a half-smile from occupying her face though; this reunion was something she'd desperately wanted and more than she deserved. "I understand."

There was a final moment of tension and then- "I'm gonna get the treasure to the cave," said Amethyst casually. "You two finish hugging and crying and junk while I'm gone."

With that Amethyst shifted into something like an enormous slug, or maybe a giant bicep with eyes and a gemstone. Amethyst wriggled part of her under the heavy salvage and then flexed, causing the device to roll onto her 'back', displacing heaps of sand to either side as she did. The purple slug had become a snail, the cylinder her shell, and she began to undulate forward, furrowing the ground in her wake.

It wasn't until the bizarre sight had disappeared into the forest that Connie could turn back to Pearl. The gem had been smiling after Amethyst but then she met Connie's eyes and her expression melted.

The hero and the companion embraced once more, the tears following soon thereafter.

"I still-" Connie's voice caught. "I still can't believe you're real. I'm so, so sorry I didn't g-get you out of that book sooner."

Pearl seemed unable or unwilling to hold Connie tightly, her hug gentle. But the pressure increased fractionally in response. "Please don't feel bad, Connie. You would have released me in time, of that I'm confident. You came close several times, I think. Given how long I was embedded, another month, year, or decade would have made little difference." Still holding Connie, Pearl leaned back and looked down at the girl. "I do not have many fond memories since coming to Earth, but all of my time with you is counted among them." Pearl leaned back in, one hand caressing Connie's hair while another patted her back. "There there," she whispered.

At that, some dam within Connie broke. She had hardly been composed before but now she was insensate. If Connie hadn't learned better over her birthday, she would have probably shrank into a bawling little girl. Tears and lamentations poured forth, snatches about books and cracked gems drifting up as the rest was lost in the embrace.

An eternity later Connie stepped back and ineffectively wiped her eyes. Pearl reached up to her gemstone and withdrew a pair of cloth handkerchiefs, one of which she handed to Connie before using the other for herself. When Connie wiggled her nose wiping the cloth over it she remembered-

"May I have one more?" she asked. Pearl was quick to oblige. "I have a friend here who I'd like you to meet. Um, meet in person, I mean. You can come out, Steven," she said, walking toward a bush on the beach's edge.

The teen rose from the foliage and took the proffered square of cloth, using it to mop up the tears he'd been silently crying in sympathy to the reunion taking place before him. He blew his nose and then smiled. "Hi miss Pearl."

Pearl efficiently dabbed away the tears, her outfit renewing with a flash of light and looking pristine instead of sobbed into from Connie-height. The handkerchief vanished into her gemstone and then Pearl clasped her hands together. "Hello Steven." She paused then said, "You're taller than I imagined."

"Oh, you didn't have, like, book vision or something?" He and Connie walked over joining Pearl in the middle of the beach, the three of them standing a few yards from the groove Amethyst had left.

Pearl shook her head. "No, I could only perceive the book itself --whether it was open or closed, when a page was flipped-- and hear my surroundings. You asked some thoughtful questions when I was telling you my story, and Connie generally sounded happier after she met you, so thank you for that."

Steven blushed and suddenly found it hard to find a place for his hands.

"Pearl," said Connie in a small voice. "I have so many questions."

Steven nodded vigorously in agreement.

Pearl bowed slightly and then scanned the area. "I'm sure you do but first I need to ask you a few. Are the others coming? Do they know about what Amethyst was doing?"

It could have been Connie's imagination but Pearl's flawless pose seemed tense, like a coiled spring or bowstring drawn taut. "No. They're elsewhere. Steven and I stumbled across Amethyst by accident and, uh, we don't even know what she's doing except that it involves something from the Red Eye wreckage."

The aura of tension around Pearl relaxed, all without the gem seeming to move. "I'm afraid your guardians might not approve of what Amethyst and I are doing. I-" She hesitated. A second later her eyes were apologetic but steel crept into her voice as she spoke. "I'm very fond of you, Connie, but I can't jeopardize what we’re doing. If I speak of this it can only be in confidence.”

Connie glanced at Steven, who reached out and squeezed her hand. A part of her only wanted to bask in the satisfaction of seeing Pearl, free and whole no less! But no matter how joyous the occasion, she couldn’t just agree to something like that. Not carte blanche.

“Steven and I don’t always agree with the other Crystal Gems but we won’t keep a secret from them that is going to be really bad for them or for the Earth. But…” Connie rubbed her arm with her free hand, afraid this scene was going to burst like a soap bubble, Pearl and Amethyst disappearing again, forever. “But if it’s not something like that then we’ll keep your secret. I, we care about you and Amethyst too.”

Steven nodded, pumping Connie’s hand twice in solidarity.

Pearl considered this, once more glancing around the area. “I understand.” Then she bowed, hands clasped in front of her, and said, “Amethyst and I are going home.”

Connie blinked. Steven looked perplexed. “Home?” they asked concurrently.

“Back to Homeworld. I am needed there, I’m certain, and Amethyst, well, she has little reason to remain.”

Connie felt a little numb and summoned a force field for her to sit down on. Steven sat down beside her. “That’s it?” she asked.

Pearl nodded.

“How?”

Pearl crouched, lowering her palm a few inches above the sand. The sand rose up and began to form a shape, the movement and control reminding Connie of Hiddenite’s fine control over water and metal. A second later stood the sandy representation of-

“You’re building a rocket ship? Cool!” said Steven. “Oh! Are you a techno gem like miss Peridot? Or a pilot?!”

Pearl chuckled, an airy sound that put a smile on Connie’s face. “No. The role of a Pearl is to serve. To organize, assist, and entertain. However, the gem I serve commands a fleet and has a fondness for recreational space flight. In executing my duties I have overseen the construction, maintenance, and repair of numerous such vessels. With perceptiveness, patience, and perseverance, even a humble gem such as myself should be able to construct a vessel to convey Amethyst and me home.” She smoothed the spaceship out to featureless sand once more and then rose to her feet.

Connie’s eyes had gone wide. “You’re going to build a spaceship out of five thousand-year-old scrap?! Pearl, that’s amazing!”

Pearl blushed, then bowed low. “That’s very kind of you to say, Connie, but I’m only imitating other, more competent gems.”

Steven motioned for Connie’s attention. The girl turned and said, “Would you mind if Steven and I talked this over?”

“No. I will tidy the area while you two deliberate,” answered Pearl. “It wouldn’t do for one of the Crystal Gems to find a furrow leading them to a supply cache.” The elegant gem gave them a parting bow and then walked over toward the gouge in the sand and soil.

“[It doesn’t sound like they want to do anything bad,]” signed Steven. “[It’s like they’re the living island, only instead of living in the ocean, Pearl and Amethyst want to live on some other planet.]”

Connie signed her agreement. “[Yeah. Pearl was a captive here on Earth. And Amethyst was never a Crystal Gem. If they want to go be with all the other gems out in space, I don’t see the harm.]”

Steven silently agreed.

“[So, you’re okay not telling the gems about this?]” pressed Connie.

Steven swallowed then nodded. “[We already don’t tell them about fusion. And that’s special and, well, it feels right. And letting Pearl and Amethyst go home feels right too.]” He looked at her, his eyes wide, and added, “[Right?]”

Connie made the knocking motion that meant, “[Yeah,]” slowly at first and then with more confidence.

Turning to address Pearl, Connie opened her mouth and then froze, her eyebrows leaping up in surprise. Pearl was partway up the beach now and the area she’d passed over was pristine. It wasn’t neat, per se, because beaches aren’t neat: there’s shells, flotsam, animal tracks, and a thousand other tiny irregularities. And, as far as Connie could tell, Pearl had recreated _all of them_.

Steven gave a low whistle, the sound coming across tinny in Connie’s hearing aids. Shaking her head to focus, Connie said, “Pearl? We’ve decided that we’ll keep your secret.”

Pearl had been in the process of precisely arranging individual leaves with one hand while the other was using her sand power to flawlessly erase the furrow a few square inches at a time. She looked up and smiled widely. “That’s a tremendous relief.” She stood, hands clasped, and said, “Thank you both. I must go home but it would be a terrible thing to have to do so against your wishes.”

A realization struck Connie and she suddenly felt a little hollow. “When- How soon will you be able to leave.” She wouldn’t stand in Pearl’s way, but she was suddenly saddened at the prospect of her leaving. _Forever._

Pearl looked thoughtful. “Our salvage is stored in caches scattered across the globe; it wouldn't do for an unlucky discovery to wipe out all of our progress."

"That's... clever," said Connie, impressed by the unassuming competency on display.

Pearl bowed slightly at the compliment. "The Rebellion operated in a similar manner during the war. Though I was never a rebel myself, I was in proximity to them for a time. As before, you're very kind to say it but I’m only imitating other, competent gems."

Pearl remained in a collected pose and Connie got the impression that any other person would be tapping their chin in thought. "It will be several days consolidating all the caches into one location." The white gem grimaced. “And even if we had all the necessary modules, it would take me weeks to overhaul the aged components and assemble the finished craft. Unfortunately, we’re still lacking a means of atmospheric propulsion.”

“Like… a plane engine or a jet booster thingy?” Steven asked.

“Ramjet,” corrected Connie before doing a double take at her friend.

“Yes, those are precisely the sort of components we’re lacking,” answered Pearl.

“I maaay know a place not too far from here that has, like, all of that stuff,” said Steven slowly.

Pearl blinked. “You do?”

“Are you sure that’s okay?” added Connie, her voice lilting up in concern.

“It’s my dad’s but he did tell me a month ago that if me or a gem could use the stuff in the family barn then it was fine,” answered Steven while rubbing the back of his neck. “He probably didn’t expect someone needing to build a rocket, but then dad never uses the flying stuff anyway. Or much of anything, really, except the extra seats. He calls the barn his Hotel California of storage.”

Pearl looked perplexed. Connie, sitting on his left, did too, adding, “I don’t get it.”

“Oh, it’s a song reference. I’ll play it for you later,” Steven assured her.

“And then we should go steal all the Crystal Jerks’ food,” said the purple Connie sitting to his right.

“Gah!” cried the boy, falling backwards across the force field he’d been sitting on.

“Ahahaha!” laughed ‘Connie.’ The purple doppelganger jabbed a thumb towards the started teen and said, “By the way, who’s this guy?”

* * *

Steven was rummaging through his backpack and having the darnedest time finding a pen and some paper. A little ways over Connie was talking with Pearl, both of them beaming in the process. It gave him a sense of warm fuzzies seeing that.

He finally found a pair of pens, one of which he offered to Amethyst.

"Oh, thanks," said the purple gem.

Steven had gone back to looking through the layers of his cheeseburger backpack for a scrap of paper she could sign when he heard a crunching sound. A glance showed Amethyst contentedly chewing and the pen nowhere in sight.

"Hehe, crunchy," she chuckled.

Steven shrugged, found a scrap of CBF-themed stationary, grabbed the other pen, and thrust them out to Amethyst. "Could I get your autograph?"

Amethyst had shapeshifted a finger to a point and was picking her ink-stained teeth. "My what?"

"I'm a big fan," said the boy. "I've read about you on Keep Beach City Weird, which is this neat website that has all this cool stuff on it. Although there you're called the 'Voleur Violet' instead of Amethyst."

Amethyst was studying the tearful stationary with open curiosity, but paused to laugh. "Man, I hope there's campers on Homeworld, because chasing those dweebs away from the Pack here was tons of fun." She laid the paper against the force field they were sitting on and signed it with a flourish, then handed it back to him.

Steven took it gingerly and saw, 'It was fun scaring you. -Voleur Violet / Amethyst.' _Cool! This is going to make the best birthday present for Ronaldo,_ he thought putting it back in his pack. In his peripheral vision, Amethyst waggled the pen at him and he said without looking up, "Help yourself."

This was followed by more contented crunching.

Steven's phone buzzed in his pocket. It wasn't the ring for mom or dad or the house phone. He'd assigned unique ringtones to Peedee and Jeff and Lars and Sadie and Buck and Kiki and Jenny and Sour Cream and Barb and Ronaldo and Jamie and Mayor Dewey and Connie's dad and Vidalia and Yellowtail so he knew it wasn't any of them. He suspected Onion might be calling him from a new burner phone but then he pulled out the phone and looked at the phone number and saw a bunch of weird things like tildes and accent marks.

Miss Peridot's tech confused the phone system.

His eyes went wide. "Hey Connie," he shouted, causing her and Pearl to look over in surprise. "I'm getting a call from your house."

"That must be Lapis calling to check on us. Quick, Pearl, Amethyst, be quiet." The beach was silent save for the sounding of Steven’s phone. "Okay, go ahead, Steven."

Steven accepted the call from the improbable phone number. "Hi! This is Steven," he said chipperly, his enthusiasm for a day going well drowning out the flutter of nervousness in his tummy.

"Hey Pinkie," said miss Lapis sounding that way she did when she was pretending to be happy. Steven frowned slightly. He felt bad for Lapis even though she was being brave and not flying off like she used to. Maybe he could- "Dot checked in. Gotta cancel the boat ride and get all three of us over to them toot sweet. Weird stuff's happening."

"Oh. Okay. Me and Connie were sailing along the coast earlier," technically true from when they'd been following Amethyst. Steven knew he was a crummy liar. "And now we're hanging out on the beach. Want us to sail back to the Beach House?"

Five eyes, six if you count Amethyst's hidden one, watched him in tense silence.

"Naw, no time. Just shoot off a flare and I'll get you and Con-con. The sloop can sail itself back."

Cold shot down Steven's spine and the butterflies in his tummy started a rave. Deliberately speaking loudly while staring at miss Pearl, he said, "You want me and Connie to fire off a flare so you can come and get us?"

Pearl made a gesture and Amethyst shapeshifted into an owl and flew off into the forest. Then Pearl said something in a whisper to Connie and began to retreat slowly into the forest herself.

"Yeah, that's what I just said. Is Dot's phone workin' right?"

Pearl pulled some kind of funky looking broom from her gemstone and was using it to sweep away all the tracks she and Amethyst had made (the big furrow from earlier having already been dealt with). The neat thing was, she'd do this follow up sweep and it would scatter everything so that it looked normal with just sticks and leaves and stuff. 

For some reason he thought Buck would find that very zen: sweeping and then un-sweeping.

He shook his head. "Yeah, it's fine. I just... Can you carry both of us?"

Steven heard an eye roll over the phone. "I'll make two trips, Stevie."

"Oh, okay. Yeah, I'll, uh-" Connie, who had been peering into the forest after Pearl, turned and gave Steven a thumbs up. "Firing the flare now. See you soon."

"Seeya," and the call ended.

He withdrew the flare gun he'd grabbed from the gems' boat and shot it into the air, a brilliant green light burning overhead.

Fifteen seconds later miss Lapis showed up looking fake-happy. "Alright kiddies. Who's flying first?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering where the heck the sand powers of Pearl's in Connie Swap come from, it's us making larger use of a power [Pearl has in the show as well.](https://youtu.be/Q69lzI_KaGU?t=66)


	3. Falling Unexpectedly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After you finish reading this chapter, there is a related omake story you might want to check out:  
> [Bonus Scene - Episode 21: Lost and Found](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/33523755) by [br42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- An explanation of where Wolf was during the excitement of Episode 21, Chapter 3. This is 100% canon.

"-'t know. Dot just said... whoa."

Steven nodded in agreement with the now-silent miss Lapis. He, Connie, and Lapis were standing on a warp pad in what looked like a pretty normal part of rural Delmarva... that had been stepped on by a giant.

Trees were smooshed flat or broken in half, their leaves scattered in big banks like heaps of snow. Big circles were pressed in the ground, not deep but _wide_. There were three pyramid dealies that were about as tall as miss Jasper. They reminded Steven of the four-sided dice from _Lutes and Loot_ only whoever had rolled these had been angry: the ground was torn up where they'd been thrown and none of them had the right side pointing up to judge from the broken antenna things poking into the dirt.

"What are-" Connie started to say.

"Sensor tower cluster, close-ish to the temple. We're still in Delmarva," answered Lapis, the gem looking around nervously, her wings already summoned.

There was a loud noise, like hearing a lion roaring from the other side of town. Steven's eyebrows shot up as he saw Jasper _fall up_ , the orange warrior rising above the other side of a distant hill. A moment later Jasper fell the normal direction.

"Okay kids, no time for two trips so this is gonna get cozy." The gem grabbed Connie, slinging her over her shoulder in a partial fireman's carry. Steven she reached for and hefted with her arm under his rump like he was a baby in need of burping. Her shoulder was poking into his tummy and he felt like he was getting on an even more dangerous than usual Funland ride.

He forgot sometimes that Lapis was magically strong.

She wobbled slightly, staggering to find her balance. "Whoa. Everyone okay?" There were grunts of assent. "Great," and with that Lapis leapt and her wings began flapping hurriedly, her shoulder _really_ poking into Steven's tummy as he saw the ground retreat. Some of Connie's hair was dangling in the way of Lapis' wings and was soon dripping wet.

 _Don'tPukeOnConnieOrMissLapisDon'tPukeOnConnieOrMissLapisDon'tPukeOnConnieOrMissLapis,_ he chanted to himself.

The roaring and blaster noises grew louder and then the ground grew closer and then Steven was tripping over his own feet as the blue arm holding him up dropped him back down. 

He thought he'd seen Jasper fall-flying off the way they'd come. She hadn't sounded happy about it.

"The heck is that?!" cried miss Lapis.

Steven had landed on his back and regretted packing so many hard things in his cheeseburger. Rolling onto his stomach he pushed himself off the ground, Connie helping him up. He was already wearing the shield on his arm and Connie summoned a ring of yellow around it.

"It's an incarnated Scoleciaaaaa-"

The air had rippled up and sideways and miss Peridot had suddenly fallen in that direction. The ripple must have ended somewhere because the green figure's fall went from up and sideways to down and sideways. Steven thought he saw her helicopter fingers out but he couldn't be sure.

"Dot!"

A blur of motion caught Steven's eye and he raised his shield on instinct, expanding the field for wider coverage and engaging the inertial dampener. Connie stood to his left, sword drawn and standing in a fighting stance. Looking through his force field he saw something yellow, well, white-but-yellow-through-a-force-field, falling through the air and landing maybe twenty feet ahead of them.

"Whoooaaa..."

It took Steven a moment to realize that the word he'd been thinking had been said aloud by miss Lapis.

It looked like a snake that had eaten half of a lion which had eaten most of a person, but the person was hanging out of the lion's mouth and the lion was poking out of the top of the snake. There were eyes in the, uh, mouth-face and they looked sad. And confused. Large lion arms hung at the monster-gem-person's side while normal person arms were reaching out. A white, diamond-shaped gemstone was set into its chest.

Lapis stepped in front of them, that hammer of hers unfolded and gripped tightly. "Sorry, ugly, but aaAH!"

The air rippled and Lapis fell upward. She flew down a second later, upside down, wings beating quickly.

"Yeah, no. Whatever you waaAH!"

The air rippled and Lapis fell sideways. She flew back right after, looking like one of those people walking in an Escher picture.

"You're not getting rid OOF!"

The ripple changed and Lapis landed on her stomach. She tried to spring to her feet but staggered when she tried to pick up her hammer. Letting the weapon go, she stepped lightly forward.

"Neat trick, but that's not going to woooaAH!"

The ripple grew stronger and the water of her wings fell to the ground. She had just a second to notice that before she was thrown skyward like miss Peridot had been.

The lion-snake-person slithered forward a little, the eyes looking at Connie. Its mouth, the person-mouth, was frowning.

Steven started to inch forward, trying to put more of the force field in front of Connie. Suddenly gravity forgot which way was right and Steven was hanging by his shield while his body was trying to fall into the clouds.

A corner of him thought it was neat that the inertia dampener was stopping the sudden fall. The rest of him was screaming. That included his mouth. "Aaaaaah!"

"Steven! I- I think I know you. Please, put him down. Um, gently," Connie said, her voice tight.

Steven spun around his shield like a screaming gymnast and was seriously dizzy even when his feet touched ground. He thought he saw Connie take a step toward the snake-person or maybe the snake-person slithered closer. 

Then an orange blur streaked out of nowhere as fast as a cannonball, slammed into the lion-person, who went flying (not falling) sideways.

The white corrupted gem-person hurdled sideways, then fell up, then sideways back the way it came like a lion-snake-person-shaped boomerang... and then miss Lapis dive bombed it with her hammer. She slammed it out of the air and toward the ground like something out of _Dragon Ball Z_.

The air shimmered and the fall slowed but it still hit the ground hard enough to make Steven wince. By now he'd managed to disengage the inertial dampener long enough to get his shield in front of him again.

"If you can zap it, do it. Otherwise, stay back," barked Jasper, already charging toward the impact.

A second later Jasper flew sideways past them, hands tearing furrows through the ground as she tried to stop herself. She was doing pretty well until Lapis fell sideways into her, knocking her loose.

There was a loud roar as the monster-person landed a couple hundred feet away; the loudness was enough to make Steven want to turn off his hearing aids, something he still missed now and then. He and Connie stepped closer to each other instinctively.

There was a 'whooom!' like a giant hammer hitting the ground. Over where Lapis and Jasper had landed one of those big circles appeared in the ground. This broke trees and scattered rocks but it didn't seem to hurt the gems.

'Whooom!' and there was another circle, closer. 'Whooom!' Steven's eyes were wide. He pulled Connie close, angled his shield overhead, and made sure the inertial dampener was on.

There was green, the world blurred past despite Steven's body insisting he wasn't moving, and then suddenly there was a 'Whooom!' followed by a crunching noise like someone crunching the world’s largest soda can. Miss Peridot cried out.

Deeply confused, Steven whipped his head around. They were about fifty feet from where they had been standing, an area which was in the middle of a giant squish circle. On the edge of the circle stood miss Peridot. He thought for a second that one of her arms had been ripped off, his heart hammering in his ears, but actually it was her limb enhancer on the ground while a tiny, green arm poked out in its place.

Looking their way, Peridot yelled in a voice that was somehow more intense even than miss Jasper's. "Flee! Now!"

Steven found his feet moving before he'd even consciously processed the command, Connie sprinting along beside him. Fortunately he'd trained enough to remember to turn off the inertial dampener before trying to run.

Jasper was throwing rocks at the monster-person and then immediately spin-dashing to a new spot to avoid the ripple attacks. Lapis would sometimes hurtle past, catch herself with her wings, and then fly back toward the fight.

There was a helicopter noise and miss Peridot soared above and ahead of them, her tiny green arm holding a bundle of stuff under it. It reminded Steven of how his dad would balance a laundry basket on his hip with one arm.

Laundry was the one chore his mom refused to have any part of. According to Dad, it was even in their wedding vows.

Peridot landed ahead on the warp pad and then she pointed her one techno-arm at them and-

More green. More movement without feeling movement. Steven landed clumsily and found he was standing on the warp crystal. There was a flash of light and then he, Connie, and Peridot were in wherever you were between warps. Steven found himself floating and his tummy told him that it was very unhappy with that fact.

Apparently the gems had remembered to pay the gravity bill this month because everything returned to normal when the three of them appeared in the Beach House. Steven rolled off the warp pad and then sprawled out on the floor, grateful for the reassuring (if uncomfortable) solidness of the hardwood floor.

"Connie. Field examination! Arms out, palms open!" barked Peridot.

Connie instantly moved to comply, her eyes as wide as saucers. "M-Ma'am?" she stammered.

"No moving until the examination is complete. I have to make sure you're unharmed." Peridot wagged her small arm at Connie in stern rebuke, dropping the broken techno-arm on the floor in the process. Her intact techno-arm scanned.

‘DING’ sounded the limb.

Peridot nodded. "No significant tissue damage. Good. Your turn, Steven."

Connie stood shellshocked nearby. She and Steven shared a look but neither of them spoke.

It was just after the limb dinged that the warp pad lit up and Lapis was standing there with Jasper in a bridal carry, the warrior eclipsing everything of Lapis from the waist up.

Part of Steven still couldn't get used to seeing Lapis lift stuff like that.

"Hang on there, OJ," said Lapis, her voice laced with worry. She set the large Quartz down gently and looked into her eyes.

Jasper said something that Steven couldn't make sense of, "Uru, lbh qb pner," and then she flickered like a glitched video game.

"Dot, get the fountain water!"

"Lbh unir gur cerggvrfg sbez, lbh xabj," said Jasper, large head resting in Lapis' lap and looking up at the blue gem.

Peridot, who had somehow found and pulled a baggy sweater over her, one sleeve flaring wide around the limb enhancer while the other concealed the arm inside, stammered. "I- That is, the Slinker barricade I erected around the store of healing lacrimal essence-"

"Dot!"

"I can't!" cried miss Peridot, waving her sweater arm at Lapis. "The necessary bypasses were kept in _this_ enhancer!"

"Gah! I'll get it myself. That stuff feels different anyway." The temple door opened and then a bunch of water sloshed out of Lapis' room. The temple door slammed shut and then opened again showing miss Peridot's room. Lapis flew through in a blur, her water following through.

Jasper's head landed on the warp pad crystal with a thud. "Bj. Lrnu, gung'f Yncvf," she said.

From this angle Steven could see what on a human would look like a broken nose: a long crack extending out along the right side of Jasper's gem that made it look lopsided.

In Peridot's room there was the sound of something heavy crashing. Then Lapis flew out of the open doorway with a green box covered in wires and circuitry.

"Ah, if you'll bring that over here, I can enter the-"

Peridot went silent when Lapis grabbed a corner and ripped off a corner of the box.

"That is another solution, I suppose," the technician drawled.

"V'z fgvyy jnvgvat ba gung envapurpx, lbh xabj," said Jasper. Her form flickered right after.

Lapis pulled out a vial, like a _Lutes and Loot_ potion only made of shiny metal instead of glass. _Hmm, I don't remember any L &L potions having a childproof cap either,_ observed Steven.

Lapis cracked the top off, chucking the broken lid over her shoulder. She then poured the healing water over Jasper's gem, staring into the Quartz' face as the cracked gemstone was repaired.

"So, the heck was that?" Lapis asked a moment later, Jasper apparently content to remain where she was for the moment.

"A Scolecite," answered miss Peridot as she used her green tractor beam to hover her broken techno-arm over to her.

Lapis blinked. "I've never seen one of those before. What do they do when they're not, ya know, fugly?"

Peridot gave Lapis a _look_. She was about to speak when Connie interrupted. "They power buildings and do gravity stuff, don't they?" she said.

It took Steven a second to realize that his friend had been almost completely silent since the fight. Well, other than screaming.

Peridot blinked. "That's- Yes. I don't recall covering them in your curriculum, being an obsolete gem line that is exclusively embedded."

Connie shrank in on herself, Steven scooting closer to her on instinct. 

"That's the gem from the inverted pyramid." She looked up from where she'd been staring at the floor. "And it's my fault it's loose."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It turns out there was more than just Pearl and Amethyst that was lost. The design and model for the pyramid gem (or Pyra, as we like to call her) was done by BurdenKing. Looking at our notes, this is the 10th episode that has contained or foreshadowed Pyra. If you're curious which ones those are, the [Subplots, Running Jokes, and Nicknames Log](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S-3VTvii9R8MeV7l1U1Sh0l3JqVnM8vVwuSz7qmlQQk/edit?usp=sharing) has been updated to include her info.
> 
> And so we come to the conclusion of _Lost and Found_. Per our schedule, we'll be taking a break from the main fic next week, though you can expect some sort of omake offering on the 9th. Tune in on Wednesday, May 16th for the start of **Episode 22: Highs and Lows**.
>
>>   
>   
>  The newest corrupted gem is too dangerous for humans, and gemtech fares little better. As such Connie, Peridot, and Steven are benched, leaving only Jasper and Lapis to fight it. On the battlefield and in the Beach House, things are tense as everyone reels from the gravity of the situation.
> 
>   
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Keeping track of all the updates to Connie Swap can get a little difficult, can't it? It doesn't have to be! If you go to the [Connie Swap Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/630527) page and click the " **Subscribe** " button then you will receive an email alert every time a new episode is posted or a new chapter is added to _ANY_ fic in Connie Swap.
> 
> One button. All the updates.


End file.
